Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Wiley
Résumé : International audience
Exposure to disturbance is rarely considered in marine protected area planning. Typically, representing and replicating the habitat types present within protected areas is used to spread the risk of protecting frequently disturbed sites. This was the approach used during the 2004 re-zoning of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (GBRMP) via the Representative Areas Program. Over 10 years later, we examine whether the risk was spread by mapping exposure of coral reefs in the GBRMP to four disturbances that cause coral mortality: bleaching, tropical cyclones, crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks, and freshwater inundation. Our objectives were to: (1) assess whether no-take areas include a range of disturbance regimes, and (2) identify coral reef areas with lower relative exposure. At least 13% and an average of 31% of reef locations in each of 11 exposure classes are included within no-take areas. A greater proportion of low-exposure areas are within no-take areas than high-exposure areas (34.2% vs. 28.3%). The results demonstrate the value of risk spreading when exposure data are not available while also showing that regularly assessing exposure increases capacity for adaptive, resilience-based reef management.
ISSN: 1755-263X

Droits : http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
hal-01225201
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01225201
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01225201/document
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01225201/file/Maynard_et_al-2015-Conservation_Letters.pdf
DOI : 10.1111/conl.12198

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Nature Publishing Group
Résumé : International audience
Tropical cyclone (TC) waves can severely damage coral reefs. Models that predict where to find such damage (the 'damage zone') enable reef managers to: 1) target management responses after major TCs in near-real time to promote recovery at severely damaged sites; and 2) identify spatial patterns in historic TC exposure to explain habitat condition trajectories. For damage models to meet these needs, they must be valid for TCs of varying intensity, circulation size and duration. Here, we map damage zones for 46 TCs that crossed Australia's Great Barrier Reef from 1985–2015 using three models – including one we develop which extends the capability of the others. We ground truth model performance with field data of wave damage from seven TCs of varying characteristics. The model we develop (4MW) out-performed the other models at capturing all incidences of known damage. The next best performing model (AHF) both under-predicted and over-predicted damage for TCs of various types. 4MW and AHF produce strikingly different spatial and temporal patterns of damage potential when used to reconstruct past TCs from 1985–2015. The 4MW model greatly enhances both of the main capabilities TC damage models provide to managers, and is useful wherever TCs and coral reefs co-occur.
ISSN: 2045-2322

Droits : http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
hal-01330362
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01330362
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01330362/document
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01330362/file/srep26009.pdf
DOI : 10.1038/srep26009